Epilogue
The stars were still brilliant overhead, silent witnesses over the gathering, now equally silent, below. The circle of faces, pale and ghostly in the starlight, remained turned to the old storyteller, waiting for him to continue.
Opa looked at each of them, holding their eyes for just a moment longer. "Perhaps that is the end of the tale. Perhaps not. But whatever follows is a tale for another time," he said in his normal voice. "For tonight, let us dream of happier things than the fate of that Black Triad. Theirs is not unlike the fate that awaits every Triad. For all the glory they win, the praise they earn, the wonders they see, they pay a terrible price. It is why they must always be remembered. Remembered, and forever honored." He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
No one moved or spoke. They sat, faces drawn and troubled, waiting for the old man to continue.
Finally, Christa rose from her place beside her husband and slipped to the side of the rocking chair. "Opa?" she whispered. There was no answer. She straightened, looking back at the others with a finger to her lips. As if on cue, the old man's soft snores rose into the warm night air.
Released from the spell in which he'd held them, the adults rose with visible reluctance. Gathering blanket-wrapped bundles of sleeping children from the grass, they quietly made their way toward the house.
Moments later, Timothy and Christa returned and crossed to the rocking chair on silent feet. Christa spread the blanket she carried over the sleeping man, carefully tucking it around him, while her husband laid the old man's pack, a great longsword strapped to the back of it, down beside the chair where Opa could find it. The storyteller would be gone when morning came, as he always was.
She touched the worn hilt of the sword and shivered. "I never know when to believe him," she whispered to her husband. "When he's telling them, it feels so real. And so many things have changed, since…." She paused, looking up at her husband. "They are just stories, right?"
"I don't know," he whispered in reply. "I guess that's magic of a kind." He bent and picked up the cup Opa had used. "Where's the rest of the cordial?"
Christa scooped up the empty bottles from the other side of the chair. "All gone." She turned one bottle in her hands, tracing the raised glass letters along the side: J-a-c-k-D-a-n-i-e-l-s. She looked up at her husband and smiled. "That's all right — there's more in the cellar."
"Good thing," Timothy said. "We'll want it next time he comes."
Together, they turned and walked back into the house.
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About the Author
Darragh Metzger was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, and adventured around the world for a time before making her home in Seattle, Washington.
While attempting to make her living in the world's two lowest-paying professions — acting and writing — she appeared (briefly) in a number of commercials and films, and spent years in various theater productions around the northwest. She also played several roles for a jousting and armored stage combat theatrical troupe known as The Seattle Knights.
Eventually this led to marrying the director, artist Dameon Willich, and from there came something of a career switch, as she learned to joust, fight in armor, wield a sword and shield with conviction, and shoot arrows and lance helpless lettuce heads from a galloping horse in the name of entertainment. An amateur musician, she also sings and writes songs for two music groups.
Her essays, articles, and interviews have been published in trade journals and small press magazines, and several of her plays have been performed by theater groups around the northwest.
A previous novel, The Triads, originally published in 2002, has been re-re-leased by TFA Press as The Triads of Tir na n'Og: Book Two of the Triads of Tir na n'Og. Another previous novel, the Strawberry Roan, has been re-released by TFA Press as a trade paperback, and as an e-book.
For a listing of her other novels, including Ironwolfe: Book One of the Triads of Tir na n’Og, check out the listing at the beginning of this book. Many of her other books and short stories are now available as e-books at:
For more information about Darragh and her books, please visit:
www.darraghmetzger.com
or
www.TFAPress.com
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Tales from Opa: Three Tales of Tir na n'Og Page 47